Breaking
Militants make last stand in city stadium, cleanup operations underway, general says
The Associated Press
Posted: Oct 17, 2017 7:43 AM ET
Last Updated: Oct 17, 2017 7:50 AM ET
A commander with the U.S.-backed Syrian forces battling the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) says the city of Raqqa has been liberated from militants, and combing operations are underway to clear the city of land mines and extremist sleeper cells.
Brig.-Gen. Talal Sillo told The Associated Press on Tuesday that there are no longer clashes in the city.
Sillo says a formal declaration will follow befitting “the fall of the capital of terrorism.”
Dozens of militants who refused to surrender had made their last stand in the city’s stadium, which had become notorious as a prison and dungeons for the group.
It wasn’t immediately clear if ISIS militants are still holed up inside the stadium.
Raqqa fell to the militant group in 2014 and became the de facto capital of its self-styled caliphate.
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